Nov 26 2008
You may recall the Village Voice referring to the Dirty Faces as a Philly band.
So now Cleveland is grabbing the credit for Girl Talk?
In a feature about his sweaty dance parties in Rolling Stone, there's no mention of Gregg Gillis being from Pittsburgh or living here, but the magazine writes, "Gillis began performing as a college student in Cleveland in 2000."
Whoa, that's not right.
Music presenter Manny Theiner recalls having Gillis play his Millvale Industrial Theater in 1998. He furthered developed the Girl Talk concept as a student at Case Western in 2000.
-- Awww. The tour schedule is out and Nickelback is not coming here. Curse you, Live Nation. And it seemed like such a contender for Concert of the Year.
The North American tour begins Feb. 25 in Nashville and comes as close as Columbus (March 11). The Canadian band's latest album, "Dark Horse," debuted at No. 2 this week, just behind Beyonce, with sales of 326,000.
Frontman Chad Kroeger told Billboard, "I think we're gonna try some stuff that, believe it or not, no one has ever done live before."
Now we're not even going to know what that is!
Nov 24 2008
When I was in high school during the ‘70s, I couldn't stand the Eagles, as they did not meet my hard-rock standard.
I was into bands like Aerosmith, Zeppelin, The Stones, The Who, Lynyrd Skynyrd ...okay, Kansas. The Eagles were far too middle of the road and radio was far too in love with cringe-worthy songs like "New Kid in Town" and even "Life in the Fast Lane."
Somewhere along the line, though, maybe after my heavy punk phase, I embraced the take-it-easy country-rock style of the Eagles, just as I did with the jazzy Steely Dan.
But passions still seem to go both ways with the Eagles. Reading what younger people write about them on message boards, they seem to be held up as the standard-bearer of boomer corporate rock bands.
That's partly why I cracked up Friday night when Joe Walsh introduced "Life's Been Good," saying, "I want to apologize to all the young people for this next song, 'cause your parents played it all while you were growing up."
It was a slight acknowledgement of how the Eagles are perceived by younger generations: "That's your parents' music."
Still, for anyone in the audience Friday night, it would be hard to deny the beauty of the harmonies, the outstanding musicianship, the depth of hits and the wackiness factor that Walsh brings to the proceedings.
They even displayed a pretty good sense of humor about themselves, between Glenn Frey calling it the "assisted living tour" and the video during "Dirty Laundry" where they showed mock headlines like "Monkey sues Joe Walsh" and Time magazine cover that said "Don Henley solves global warming."
They're not the most exciting of the old bands, but I'm still glad the Eagles haven't checked out.
Here's what they played:
1. How Long
2. Busy Being Fabulous
3. I Don't Want to Hear Anymore
4. Guilty of the Crime
5. Hotel California
6. Peaceful Easy feeling
7. One of These Nights
8. Lyin' Eyes
9. Boys of Summer
10. In the City
11. The Long Run
12. Life's Been Good
13. Dirty Laundry
14. Funk 49
15. Heartache Tonight
16. Life in the Fast Lane
1st encore
17. Rocky Mountain Way
18. All She ants To Do Is Dance
2nd encore
19. Take It Easy
20. Desperado
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Nov 21 2008
Paste and Amazon are the first out of the box with the Best of 2008 album lists.
Topping Paste's list is She & Him, the debut from the indie-folk band featuring actress Zooey Deschanel and musician M. Ward. Paste writes, "Maybe it's just a sweet little folk record-a tiny, flawless diamond. Or maybe it's a pristine distillation of harmony and craft."
Pittsburgh's Girl Talk lands at No. 7 on Paste, with the magazine writing, "In an apocalyptic year, [‘Feed the Animals'] sounds like the last party on Earth, one final chance to cram in every great beat, hook and riff before the whole planet goes poof."
That seems a bit over the top, doesn't it?
Here are the lists
Paste
1. She & Him "Volume One
2. Sigur Rós "Med sud i eyrum vid spilum endalaust"
3. Vampire Weekend "Vampire Weekend"
4. Bon Iver "For Emma, Forever Ago"
5. Okkervil River "The Stand Ins"
6. Fleet Foxes "Fleet Foxes"
7. Girl Talk "Feed the Animals"
8. Sun Kil Moon "April"
9. Lucinda Williams "Little Honey"
10. Deerhunter "Microcastle"
Amazon Editor's Picks
1. Kings of Leon "Only by the Night"
2. Santogold "Santogold"
3. Fleet Foxes "Fleet Foxes"
4. Al Green "Lay It Down"
5. Adele "19"
6. Death Cab For Cutie "Narrow Stairs"
7. Erykah Badu "New Amerykah"
8. Estelle "Shine"
9. Carll Hayes "Trouble in Mind"
10. MGMT "Oracular Spectacular
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Nov 20 2008
The imminent collapse of the big three auto makers, an economy in shambles and the presidency in transition didn't stop the New York Times from putting Girl Talk at the top of its homepage Thursday night.
The occasion was a review of the Pittsburgh laptop artist Gregg Gillis' Tuesday concert at Terminal 5 in NYC with a picture that looked like New Year's Eve came early.
Times critic Jon Pareles wrote of Gillis/Girl Talk's "party trick" of mashing up classic rock with raunchy hip-hop and said of the show, "His main physical challenge was getting to his laptop, reading the screen and hitting the right keys amid the crowd of dancing, shouting fans, some of whom were eager to massage him as he worked. Every so often he'd set a combination going and abandon his computer to plunge into the melee and dance; there were even enough people onstage for him to crowd surf."
Girl Talk hits the stage Saturday at Gravity in Cheswick for a sold-out show. The PG has an interview with him that you can read here.
One question not included in the published interview was what his most memorable gig was here this year.
His response:
"Lollapalooza was a really standout moment. I like playing their festival, there's such a level of excitement in the air and that show just meant a lot to me. I attended Lollapalooza in '95 in Pittsburgh and it was the first day I met Manny Theiner and that was a pivotal day in my life. I just kind of found out about a lot of new music and was turned on to a lot of things. So being part of that tradition was very exciting. At the very end of the show, a guy who works for my booking agency had bought a raft, and during the show they blew it up and gave it to me and I just road this raft into the crowd. I couldn't imagine it going any better."
So there it is. Pivotal day in Gregg Gillis' life: Meeting Manny Theiner!
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Nov 19 2008
Scroll through the Christie's Fine Arts auction calendar and you'll find "Jewels: The Geneva Sale," "Important European Furniture, Ceramics, and Carpets," "Finest and Rarest Wines Featuring Domaine De La Romanee-Conti" and then... "Punk/Rock."
Punk rock at Christie's? As in "Sex Pistols poster. Sold! To the gentleman for $2,000"?
Now, this is priceless - and if it doesn't make people who grew up the '70s feel kinda old, what does?
The Nov. 24 auction is the first auction of punk-era memorabilia, much of it posters, collectible records and clothing, starting with the Velvet Underground and David Bowie and moving up to the Smiths and New Order.
Among the items:
-- Extremely rare example of The Sex Pistols first press release, dating from March-April, 1976., estimate: $5,000 and $6,000.
-- Considered perhaps the most significant Punk flyer, the Screen on the Green Presents a Midnight Special August 29, 1976 featuring Sex Pistols + Clash + Buzzcocks, estimate: $3,000-$4,000.
-- Limited edition print of Black Flag poster TURRRNNN OFFF THHE RAAAADIO. I DONN'T WWANT TO LISSTEN TO MUUSIC., signed by Raymond Pettibon, brother of Greg Ginn, $2,000-$3,000
-- A 1976 Columbia Records test pressing labeled Advance Promotional, signed on the cover by The Ramones, Johnny, Tommy, Joey and Dee Dee in black marker. Accompanied by the Sire press release for their first album and a publicity photo, $5,000-$7,000.
-- Rare concert poster for The Ramones appearance at the Roundhouse, July 4, 1976, which notably attracted other bands in the audience such as The Sex Pistols, The Clash and The Damned, $2,000-$3,000.
Can't wait to see the reports of who showed up to buy this stuff and how much they paid for it.
It's just a shame that Carsickness and The Five didn't get break nationally because those posters we used to see on poles in Pittsburgh the late '70s/early '80s were some of the most edgy and alarming.
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Nov 18 2008
Next time there's a national act at the Brillobox, don't miss it. You never know what's going to happpen. Last month, the reclusive Jeff Mangum showed up with the Elephant 6 Surprise Tour.
Last week, sparks flew between former Television guitarist Richard Lloyd and local opening band The Gems, bringing the headlining set to a grinding halt.
Lloyd, who was born on the North Side and grew up in Homestead before moving to New York at age 7 and eventually becoming part of the famed CBGB scene, says he was excited to play his hometown on the last night of his tour.
What resulted was a fiasco.
According to Lloyd, while he and his band were adjusting equipment - including a back line supplied by the Gems - a woman from the crowd came up on stage to look out the window to see if the pizza shop across the street was open.
"I told her, ‘Miss, you have to get off the stage.' Civilians and pedestrians are not allowed on the stage. They might injure themselves or endanger the equipment. This string bean vocalist from the other band started arguing with me, ‘Hey, [bleep] you, she's just looking out the window.' "
According to Cory Allen of the Gems, "He screamed at her to get off the stage. If he had been polite about it, nothing would have happened. I never even raised my voice. I told him to please relax."
Back to Lloyd: "I was only five feet from [Allen]. I put my first finger up and said, ‘Don't talk to me like that.' His [friend], who was behind him, she rushes out. I haven't touched him. She grabs my left bicep and pushes me hard in my chest. I say, ‘Take your hands off me.' I swing my arm inwards and made it so she had to release her arm from my grip. And as I released her arm, I gave her a slight shove to create space between us."
"He pushed her to the side," Allen says.
How hard?
"I can't get into that. At a time where there were tempers are flaring," Allen says, "it's hard to say."
According to Jim Boyle, a Television fan who lives acros the street from the Bloomfield club, "This led to a shouting match between him and the couple, and culminated with a little physical scuffle between Lloyd and the woman. Nobody hit anyone or anything, but it was definitely intense and created a scene."
Back to Lloyd: "She screams out, ‘You hit a woman!' Then she rushes at me with both palms and hit me in the chest. I yelled, ‘Security!' "
At that point, Lloyd says, one of the bouncers comes up and says to Lloyd, "You're out!" "I say, ‘I'm the headliner. I have to play in like 5 minutes.' So I turned and went back on the stage and started tuning my guitar."
After five songs - which were really good, by most accounts, including Allen's - Lloyd needed to tune because he had new strings. From the back, he hears chants of "Rich-ard Lloyd! Rich-ard Lloyd! Woman beater!" which start from Allen and Gems' fans and pick up throughout the room.
"It was a protest," Allen says. "He was using my band's equipment and the two girls were two of our biggest supporters. I wasn't about to watch him play with our equipment when he treated our supporters like that."
The chant, Lloyd says, "was spreading like a virus. I very quietly put down my guitar and got off the stage and raised my voice and asked, ‘Please get the owner here, the promoter here, security here and please call the police.' I was afraid of several things. There were intoxicated people in the club and I was afraid one would have a little too much and try to be a hero. I was fearing for my own safety. I was hearing this slander from the audience."
At that point, Lloyd stepped off the stage to speak with the bouncer.
"He came out in the crowd and I thought he was going to try to fight," Allen says.
Allen and the band reacted by getting up on stage and removing the drums and the bass rig, which they had supplied.
Show over.
Lloyd says, "Many people got their money back and my deal was a straight percentage of the door, so obviously I lost money."
"He had this temper that was scary from the get-go," Allen says. "He was being a [jerk] the whole night. Really egotistical."
By Lloyd's account, everything was fine before the woman came up on stage. Now, he's concerned about what rumors will spread about the incident.
Will he come back to Pittsburgh to play again?
"Of course," he says.
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Nov 17 2008
Yeah, I know there's a lot of Bruce in this blog, but, hey, it's not my fault the guy insists on making news.
If you were watching Sunday Night Football last night, you probably heard the preview of his new single "Working on a Dream," the title track of a new album due Jan. 27, just before his halftime performance at the Super Bowl.
The song sounded, well, just OK. Or slightly less than OK, with Bruce singing a rather pedestrian chorus in his upper range. They didn't even play the whole song, so it's a little hard to tell.
Despite all the criticism about the production of "Magic" - personally, I loved the songs and the hated the sound - Springsteen has turned once again to producer Brendan O'Brien, probably busy creating a big wall of mushy sound in his Atlanta studio as we speak.
Springsteen released a statement, saying, "Towards the end of recording ‘Magic,' excited by the return to pop production sounds, I continued writing. When my friend producer Brendan O'Brien heard the new songs, he said, ‘Let's keep going.' Over the course of the next year, that's just what we did, recording with the E Street Band during the breaks on last year's tour. I hope Working on a Dream has [captured] the energy of the band fresh off the road from some of the most exciting shows we've ever done. All the songs were written quickly, we usually used one of our first few takes, and we all had a blast making this one from beginning to end."
Let's hope he's not just throwing this out there to have new product for the Super Bowl...
Note that the dark and gritty Halloween song "A Night With the Jersey Devil" turns up as a bonus track.
The track list
1 Outlaw Pete
2 My Lucky Day
3 Working on a Dream
4 Queen of the Supermarket
5 What Love Can Do
6 This Life
7 Good Eye
8 Tomorrow Never Knows
9 Life Itself
10 Kingdom of Days
11 Surprise, Surprise
12 The Last Carnival
13 The Wrestler *
14 A Night With the Jersey Devil *
Nov 14 2008
Rolling Stone has weighed in from on high with another list to argue about -- and this one's a doozy.
The Greatest Singers of All Time, as chosen by a panel of artists, critics and industry insiders.
Here is the list:
1 | Aretha Franklin
2 | Ray Charles
3 | Elvis Presley
4 | Sam Cooke
5 | John Lennon
6 | Marvin Gaye
7 | Bob Dylan
8 | Otis Redding
9 | Stevie Wonder
10 | James Brown
11 | Paul McCartney
12 | Little Richard
13 | Roy Orbison
14 | Al Green
15 | Robert Plant
16 | Mick Jagger
17 | Tina Turner
18 | Freddie Mercury
19 | Bob Marley
20 | Smokey Robinson
21 | Johnny Cash
22 | Etta James
23 | David Bowie
24 | Van Morrison
25 | Michael Jackson
26 | Jackie Wilson
27 | Hank Williams
28 | Janis Joplin
29 | Nina Simone
30 | Prince
31 | Howlin' Wolf
32 | Bono
33 | Steve Winwood
34 | Whitney Houston
35 | Dusty Springfield
36 | Bruce Springsteen
37 | Neil Young
38 | Elton John
39 | Jeff Buckley
40 | Curtis Mayfield
41 | Chuck Berry
42 | Joni Mitchell
43 | George Jones
44 | Bobby "Blue" Bland
45 | Kurt Cobain
46 | Patsy Cline
47 | Jim Morrison
48 | Buddy Holly
49 | Donny Hathaway
50 | Bonnie Raitt
51 | Gladys Knight
52 | Brian Wilson
53 | Muddy Waters
54 | Luther Vandross
55 | Paul Rodgers
56 | Mavis Staples
57 | Eric Burdon
58 | Christina Aguilera
59 | Rod Stewart
60 | Björk
61 | Roger Daltrey
62 | Lou Reed
63 | Dion
64 | Axl Rose
65 | David Ruffin
66 | Thom Yorke
67 | Jerry Lee Lewis
68 | Wilson Pickett
69 | Ronnie Spector
70 | Gregg Allman
71 | Toots HIbbert
72 | John Fogerty
73 | Dolly Parton
74 | James Taylor
75 | Iggy Pop
76 | Steve Perry
77 | Merle Haggard
78 | Sly Stone
79 | Mariah Carey
80 | Frankie Valli
81 | John Lee Hooker
82 | Tom Waits
83 | Patti Smith
84 | Darlene Love
85 | Sam Moore
86 | Art Garfunkel
87 | Don Henley
88 | Willie Nelson
89 | Solomon Burke
90 | The Everly Brothers
91 | Levon Helm
92 | Morrissey
93 | Annie Lennox
94 | Karen Carpenter
95 | Patti LaBelle
96 | B.B. King
97 | Joe Cocker
98 | Stevie Nicks
99 | Steven Tyler
100 | Mary J. Blige
Now, a few thoughts:
- Bob Dylan No. 7? Dylan? Really? With that voice? Why so low?
- Robert Plant ahead of Mick Jagger? No way. In fact, I'd have him over Lennon.
- Iggy the only punk? What about Joe Strummer? Not a pretty voice but a pretty amazing one. I would have Rotten on there, too, but that's me. Love those R sounds.
- Paul Rodgers? Never understood that. Maybe they meant Paul Westerberg?
- Toots Hibbert?
- Why is Whitney Houston all the way up there?
- Why is Axl Rose ahead of Steven Tyler?
- Art Garfunkel? Paul Simon sang most of those leads.
- Presumably, this is not 'of all time' and 'of the rock era' - which would explain the exclusion of Sinatra. I still have to read the fine print.
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Nov 13 2008
In the review of the Hold Steady show, there's much complaining about the chosen venue - the Carnegie Library Music Hall of Homestead, where alcohol is only permitted outside (it was raining) and the sound bounces all over the place. But with no viable 1,000-capacity over-21 club, we were lucky to even get the show. Props to Brian Drusky for bringing tours like this to town.
-- I had a seat in row J right in the middle (behind two people who were 8 feet tall) and it was hard to even make out what the Hold Steady's Craig Finn was singing, a shame considering how great the lyrics are. When I moved back under the balcony, closer to the soundboard, it was much better, probably because the sound was getting trapped in a smaller space.
-- Kenny Steinberg, prominent lawyer and avid concert-goer, writes, "Sound was terrible through most of the balcony, but at the back center it was merely awful, slightly better than terrible. Vocals were completely washed out, and it was a strain to hear guitar solos. And I wouldn't have known that there was an organ or a pedal steel for the Drive-By Truckers unless I actually saw it. I thought it was my old ears but my seat mates agreed. If one knows all of the words to all of the songs it isn't as much of an issue - our brains fill in the parts we don't hear, kind of like going to a Dylan show and figuring out in the middle of the song just what song it is!"
-- There was one funny moment in an otherwise serious Truckers' set when Mike Cooley started doing the midtempo country tune "Bob," and then stopped, saying, "Let's do another song. Ya'll are sitting down and that's just bummin' me out."
-- The Hold Steady's Craig Finn said at the end of the show something along the line of "We've never played with anyone who shares the love and joy of rock 'n' roll like the Drive-By Truckers." True. What a great pairing.
- The Hold Steady set list:
Constructive Summer
Hot Soft Light
Chips Ahoy
Yeah Sapphire
Sequestered in Memphis
Cattle and Creeping Things
Navy Sheets
Massive Nights
Party Pit
Joke About Jamaica
Chicago Seemed Tired Last Night
One of the Cutters
Cheyenne Surprise
Stuck Between Stations
The Swish
Lord, I'm Discouraged
Your Little Hoodrat Friend
Shattered Cross
How a Resurrection Really Feels
Encore (with various Drive-By Truckers)
Ride On (AC/DC)
Chill Out Tent
Look Out Cleveland (The Band)
Killer Parties
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Nov 12 2008
The bad news: A Hollywood biopic of Jerry Garcia is in the works. And you know what those can be like.
The good news: Albert Berger and Ron Yerxa, who have us the excellent indie hits "Election" and "Little Miss Sunshine," have signed on to produce, along with Eric Eisner ("Hamlet 2").
Interestingly, rather than capture the iconic musician at his Dead peak, according to the Hollywood Reporter, "The untitled project will focus primarily on Garcia's early life in the Bay Area before he joined the band that would become the Grateful Dead - a period that includes a stint in the military, a life-changing car accident and his first creative encounters with members of the Northern California music scene including future Dead bassist Phil Lesh."
The basis is Robert Greenfield's book "Dark Star," an oral history of Garcia. Topper Lilien ("Where the Money Is") will write the screenplay. No word on who will play Jerry, but people are already tossing out names like Philip Seymour Hoffman, Jack Black and Paul Giamatti.
As long as we keep Seth Rogen out of the discussion...
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